


On Coffee And Similar Bad Ideas

by Alisette



Series: Do Not Go Gentle [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Amnesia, Crack Fic, No hamsters were harmed in the making of this fic, Shippy if you Squint, absolutely shameless self indulgence, coffee and why Mordin shouldn't have any, hangover: in space, non-alcoholic hangovers, the same cannot be said for any characters dignity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 17:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18609415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alisette/pseuds/Alisette
Summary: What happens if you feed an already high strung salarian the same coffee engineering uses to stay awake on end? Bad things, that's what. (Un)Fortunately nobody can seem to remember what exactly those things were...





	On Coffee And Similar Bad Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> Created for lesath , who really really like those two and was bemoaning that there weren't enough fics with them as center pieces, so here we are, with some unapologetic crack.  
> Points to anyone who catches all the background couples I've slipped in because I felt like it

Why did it have to be Kirrahe, of all people to be temporarily assigned to the Normandy? Surely on the entirely of Sur’Kesh there had to have been another wildly competent soldier to send along, instead of Kirrahe. Clearly the Dalatrass had it out for him.

 _On_ Sur’Kesh itself it had been easy enough to avoid him. The Normandy was more cramped. Not cramped enough to warrant Kirrahe all but moving _into his lab_ , but here they were, with Kirrahe brandishing a strange glass vessel sloshing with a pungent liquid the same color as truly well decomposed plant juice.

“Purpose of visit?” Mordin tried very hard to at least sound polite.

“You’re taking too long with the cure. The humans swear by this” Kirrahe shook the glass vessel again for emphasis. “It can hardly make you any slower” He put the concoction down together with a cup. Apparently he was supposed to _drink_ that. Absolutely not.  
“Unless you’re too much of a coward to try it.” 

Mordin narrowed his eyes and grabbed the cup.

\--------------

This had been a mistake. Not that Mordin had any idea what ‘this’ constituted, but being prone on something semi-soft with his head feeling like half a dozen tiny krogans were playing war in there was usually a bad sign. Did he get knocked out? No, his mind felt clear enough. Thinking seemed to hurt, but there was none of the haze of the common narcotics. A quick rotation of his wrists confirmed that he had no restraints on, and the telltale buzz of a containment field was missing. Not kidnapped then. He could, with some confidence, risk a glance around.

He regretted that immediately.

The tiny krogans turned into BIG krogans, with so many rocket launchers, living right on his optic nerve. He closed his eyes again with a sound of suffering. What had happened?  
His confusion only grew when there was an echoing, slightly muffled sound of suffering from approximately 0.45 galactic standard meters beside him, making his eyes fly open again despite the pain the - dimmed! He recognized the setting as the one he usually slept at, objectively it wasn’t particularly bright! Just enough to let him sleep without having to waste time brightening it after getting up! - light brought.

There was a piece of clothing hanging on a pulled out drawer just at the edge of his vision. It looked very much like a pants leg. A flex of ankle indicated that it was likely his pair of pants, since he was currently not wearing any. His pants, then. And his room, therefore presumably his bed, too.

Another sound of suffering resolved into - well, calling it swearing seemed to be underselling the creativity involved. He was fairly sure not even the most flexible of Hanar could actually do that. Certainly not with a varren. Certainly not producing a viable hybrid, though perhaps if you spliced the genes toge- no. No, he was not considering that first thing after getting up with the mother of all headaches. Aside, the voice sounded familiar even if the swears weren’t.

Mordin turned his head in the hope that maybe whatever had been inflicted on him had damaged his auditory capabilities somehow. It hadn’t. That was Major Kirrahe next to him. Without clothes also, considering what he could see of him, which was entirely too much for his comfort, even with Kirrahe face down in a pillow, uttering threats to the galaxy at large and the existence of light in particular.

He was going to have to run some heavy duty drug tests on himself. And presumably Kirrahe. The idea of jabbing a needle into him was intensely tempting right now. Hey, didn’t he have some in the sample set he had taken here after a brain wave a week ago? But that would require getting up, and even the satisfaction of getting to poke holes into Kirrahe wasn’t worth that, at least not yet. 

Still, the noise was bothersome enough to make him jab Kirrahe in a conveniently present light burn on his arm. “Silence.” 

“Fuck off, Solus.” 

Well then. He poked him again, harder. “Last coherent memory? Personal recollection somewhat...spotty.” Intensely spotty. He’d been in his lab, this close to making a breakthrough on the cure but not quite getting there when… when Kirrahe had interrupted him with that ‘beverage’. Surely he hadn’t… except everything pointed towards the fact that he had. Those needles on the desk across his room were looking more and more tempting.

“Fuck. I don’t know. You were too slow on the cure, I tried to fix it, you- we drank and then I’m waking up feeling like I’ve been run through STG training twice, except with concussive rounds this time.” 

That wasn’t terribly helpful in telling Mordin what had happened between ‘terrible idea of ingesting human beverage’ and ‘wake up mostly naked in the same bed as _Kirrahe_ ’.  
It was testament to just how bad he felt that he needed another ten seconds to come up with the obvious solution.

“EDI, require access to security records of-” He checked the time quickly, momentarily boggled at how much of it had apparently passed, and soldiered on. “Personal location and activity in last ten hours.” 

There was a moment of pause before the AI replied, and he got the distinct impression that if she’d had any sort of involuntary expressions of emotions to her mobile platform, she might have fidgeted.  
“I am very sorry Doctor Solus, my records appear somewhat...corrupted. There was a minor issue uploading new software onto my mobile platform in the relevant time, leading to intermediate loss of surveillance data access during the software tests.” 

That was extremely unhelpful. “Reconstruction possible?” 

“Yes, but it will take some time, I’m afraid. I can prioritize the reconstruction, if the records are important to your work.” 

“No. Priority low, merely...personal interest.” He couldn’t justify it to himself when there were so much more important things to put EDI’s processors to use on. Having the ship focus on just what he got up to after ill-advised fluid ingestion seemed somewhat frivolous. He’d just have to work it out himself. Themselves, since Kirrahe was still there, albeit sitting up by now, looking around for his clothes. He’d either already located and put on his underwear, or never gotten out of it, and that was the version of events that Mordin decided he liked better, at least until sufficient evidence otherwise was presented. Which at the current time might take some effort. 

“So the AI won’t help us, I take it.” Kirrahe was dressed by now, or mostly. His jacket seemed to be missing still, despite poking in various corners and picking up what looked a lot like Mordin’s abandoned clothing, just in case.

“Help not necessary. Loss of memory inconvenient but of little import. Will cope. So will you. Focus on mission more important.” 

“You have a point there. I’ll help myself to your shower and then you can put the remains of your horns on right and get back to work.” With that, Kirrahe vanished into the little lavatory. He came back out twenty seconds later after a curse, a series of small bangs, a louder bang, and much louder curse.  
He held a little furry creature at arm’s’ length, as if it was live ordnance. There was a small, bleeding bite on his forearm, right next to the burn. “You have a free-roaming pet?”

“Shepard’s pet.” Mordin had of course recognized the animal at once. The Commander had complaint about its miscreant ways often enough. “Investigation necessary after all.” 

\-------------

“You’re not seriously suggesting we break into the Commander’s quarters. If she’s in there we’ll be in one mess of a situation. Surely it’d be better to just knock and tell her we found her pet? If it escapes routinely surely that’s a good enough excuse?” Kirrahe was still holding the hamster in question, though with his arms covered he at least offered less obvious vulnerable spots for the creature to attack. Granted, the jacket was borrowed from Mordin and therefore didn’t fit quite right, but hopefully nobody would notice. 

“Shepard not in her quarters at this time. Most likely to be found in battery. Hamster escape by own means unlikely. Redesigned habitat to stop it. Work impeccable.”

“I’d rather your memory was impeccable too. Alright, how do we get in without alerting the AI?” 

Mordin shot him a dirty look. “Passcode available.” Because of course he had the codes. You never knew when you needed access to someone’s quarters without the VI - or AI in this case - breathing down your neck, the habit had been very useful on Omega, and very entertaining on Sur’Kesh so he’d just kept it.

He just confidently walked up to the door, typed in the code, and it opened fine. Behind him Kirrahe mumbled something unhappy but clearly he saw the point of not loitering in the hallway and stepped into the rooms quickly. Mordin started looking around for the cage that he’d prepared - and other damages, though there didn’t seem to be any. The ship collection was fine, for example, and he refused to take responsibility for anything else. It was probably the result of the Commander falling into bed entirely exhausted after a mission, and just shedding her clothes as she went. 

“That’s very interesting, keeping live rations by her room.” Kirrahe stood in front of the aquarium, watching the fish inside circle lazily. It was quite a collection, now that the VI was feeding them and they didn’t have to get new ones at every stop at the Citadel. 

“Oh no, decorative only. However, idea interesting, shall mention it to Shepard.” It really wasn’t an entirely stupid idea..

“Decora-aH!” The hamster had used Kirrahe’s momentary distraction to sink it’s tiny but very sturdy teeth into his hand. By reflex, Kirrahe flailed, sending the hamster flying across the room, onto the bed, where it bounced once, immediately recovered - were hamsters tree dwelling creatures? - and vanished off the bed. 

To his - minimal - credit, Kirrahe immediately dove after it - also bouncing on the bed, albeit with much less grace - and tried to recapture it. The hamster was faster. He saw it leap off the bed, and then scurry towards a vent, and Mordin shouted that much. Having directions was very helpful apparently, but not enough. The hamster squeezed through the grid and vanished.

“Follow it!” The course of action needed now was clear, but Kirrahe just stood and cast him a baleful look.

“You follow it then.” 

“Unwise. Must adjust room to cover up entry. Aside, Kirrahe experienced with this, caught hamster once before.” Mordin knew his logic was sound, and so did Kirrahe. He shot him another dirty look and made to open the vent and crawl inside. How hard could it be to catch such a small creature in a confined space? 

Going by the sounds the made it through the wall, the answer was ‘rather’. There was banging, curses, the screech of metal on metal and more banging, which Mordin all summarily ignored as he investigated the cage. It was undamaged, clearly when they’d taken the hamster, he’d just turned off the security measures and taken it. But that left them with the problem of explaining how the hamster had escaped without outside help, which was the main problem.

Mordin looked at the box, thinking and humming to himself as he did so. Kirrahe’s efforts in the vents made an oddly rhythmic counterpoint to it, quite pleasing actually. It actually gave him an idea…  
“Have solution! Kirrahe, abort mission.” The modification would make it seem like the hamster had escaped on its own, so really there was no point in catching it again. Should have thought of that sooner.

Kirrahe said as much when he emerged from the vent, both horns looking a little worse for the wear with bruising, and a number of small scratch marks on his face. “Pray tell why didn’t you think of that _before_ I crawled into the vents?” 

“Coffee hangover.” That was a bald-faced lie, but it was his story and he was sticking with it. 

Apparently Kirrahe didn’t feel like arguing with him, because he just grumbled under his breath and made to leave. Mordin went with him, only getting a last glance at the Commander’s quarters with the lights off before he closed the door. He was pretty sure the fish weren’t supposed to glow. He was also pretty sure Shepard wouldn’t notice. At least not right away.

\------------------

They were back in the lab he worked in, based on the idea that maybe they should try retracing their steps from last night and work out if there were any other surprises waiting for them. Mordin was pleased to find that he had apparently worked out the cure for the genophage last night - and frustrated that he could remember none of it, and the notes were a confounding mess. Granted he’d been accused of his notes being a confounding mess before, but he usually could interpret them fine. Not so today.

He dug around some more before deciding it a lost cause. But there was one more source of information here.  
“Eve, question. Knowledge of last night’s events?” 

He couldn’t see her expression very well, aside from her eyes, but she seemed to be smiling.  
“I have seen the start of it, of course.” And she sounded amused, too. “But I don’t think I should tell you. It will be a better lesson for you, like this. Even very smart people need the occasional lesson.” 

Mordin was just about to start protesting but she lifted a hand. “But I can tell you that you were planning to go to the shooting range when you left here. You were aiming to ‘settle a score’.” And that was all he could get from her. It would had to be enough, and he couldn’t escape the impression that Eve was laughing at his confusion. Or their confusion, since Kirrahe’s poking of petri dishes and instruments seemed to entertain her just as much.

Mordin went to see what he was doing there, and limit any damage to his samples. Too late, apparently, because there was a fingerprint in one of them. A _fingerprint_! He wheeled on Kirrahe and curse it all why didn’t he have a gun with him! 

“Explain yourself!” He brandished the vandalized sample at him. 

“What am I supposed to explain here?” Kirrahe gestured at the dish and then rapidly backed up against the workbench when Mordin advanced on him, all but sticking the poor abused sample in his face. “Hey now, I don’t remember what happened last night any more than you do, and the fingerprint is clearly already dried into the medium so it might have been from then. For all we know your guest could have poked it!” 

“Eve better behaved. Wouldn’t ‘poke’ sample. Also, fingerprint clearly salarian in size and configuration.” But perhaps Kirrahe did have a point about the age of the fingerprint. He leaned back a bit to look at it and alright maybe it already was dried in. But it was still a finger print in his sample! So clearly there was no reason to back out of his personal space and stop menacing him. For science, which the other one clearly didn’t respect enough. At least not yet. Kirrahe was starting to look suitably intimidated, eyes darting to side to look for an escape. Good.

 

He stepped back, pleased by the way Kirrahe took a deep breath once he was out of his personal space. Mordin looked around to take in the rest of last night’s destruction. There were dark circles of dried up liquid on the bench, and one of the datapads he liked to take notes on, but they didn’t seem seriously damaged and he could probably clean them easily enough. Well, nothing for it. The progress notes still didn’t make any sense, but he had a working cure. He would of course check it over later, but it wouldn’t be the first time that a night of stimulant fueled work had resulted in a breakthrough, it had gotten him through the occasional tough problem back when he had still been in med school. There were still other questions left to answer and the idea that they might have been to the shooting range testing who knew what was an unsettling one. They would just have to check it.

“To the range, then. Thank you, Eve.” He turned sharply and headed into the direction of the armory, leaving Kirrahe to spit a curse behind him and rush to catch up.

\--------

They came across some people, but apparently both of them were radiating enough of a bad mood to translate across species barriers and people large left them alone or even hurried to get out of the way. So the most interaction they caught were snippets of conversation along the way that Mordin only paid passing attention to because it was better than paying attention to Kirrahe.

Most of what he heard was trivial, talk about calibrations, the butts of a joke or two, a worried conversation between two ensigns, about Cerberus activities, none of it people he recognized until they came to the shuttle bay and the armory/shooting range it included. Who thought that housing those two things together was a good idea he’d never know.

On the way past the shuttles he caught fleeting sight of James and the shuttle pilot - Cortez? Yes that was his name, capable man - standing together. He only caught James saying something along the lines of ‘this isn’t some sort of rebound thing, is it?’ and concluded that it had to be one of those athletic things the human soldiers liked so much. Then again, he could see the point in some friendly competition to keep sharp. Beside him Kirrahe seemed to pay more attention to it - mostly by deliberately looking like he was absolutely not paying attention to it - but that made sense. Mordin had gotten the impression that even across species, soldiers shared certain habits.

The shooting range itself looked a little less tidy than normal. Alright, a lot less tidy. Usually people - primarily Shepard and Garrus, who seemed to have taken gun mods to a competitive level. Mating rituals could be so weird - didn’t leave spent heat sinks lying around the floor where anyone could step on them.  
Apparently however, Mordin and Kirrahe had. The heat sinks were plentiful, as were the half-assembled guns and something that looked a whole lot like some ordnance nicked off a shuttle with its detonator carefully removed and then precariously perched on an a pyramidal arrangement of grenades that looked way too delicate to still be standing. And most certainly should be taken apart with utmost care at some point soon. Mordin made a mental note for that for later because right now he was beginning to suspect that he had a bigger problem on his hands.

As soon as Kirrahe had seen the contents of the work bench he’d stalked forward and picked one of the guns up - or rather the handle, the rest of it conspicuously absent. It look a whole lot like his Scorpion.  
“Solus. Where. Is. The rest. Of my gun?”  
Mordin had seen his fair share of near-misses with death. This was feeling eerie similar.  
“Ah-” 

“Major Kirrahe, the missing components of your gun are currently in engineering,” EDI helpfully supplied before things could escalate further. “Engineers Daniels and Donnelly are currently inspecting it. If you like, I can ask them to bring it here?” 

The look on Kirrahe’s face suggested that maybe that wasn’t the best idea, but Mordin had always been good at thinking on his feet. What was life without a little pressure in the form of imminent murder that needed escaping?  
“Not necessary, will retrieve item myself.” He turned sharply to head towards the Engineering Deck, feeling Kirrahe’s eyes all but borrowing into his back. He’d had laser sights on him before and enjoyed the experience more. Still, he wasn’t one to be cowed so easily. Just outside the doors to the hallway he stopped and turned back to him  
“Grenades need disarming and safe return to storage. Ideally, task accomplished quickly.” He’d gotten used to the rhythms of the ship well enough to time it so that Kirrahe had no time to respond before the gates swished closed between them.

\--------

The engineers were still hunched over the gun when he got there, talking to each other, or perhaps rather squabbling about its purpose and modifications and alright he should probably take that away from them before they started poking at it. They were good engineers, but that wasn’t quite the same as weapon’s modifications and he didn’t want them to get hurt.

“Should take this back.” He eeled his way past them to grab the gun - it needed a little tug to make Daniels let go. “Potentially dangerous, untested prototype. Could explode.” It couldn’t. He hoped. He was pretty sure at least. Ok, considering the pyramid of grenades upstairs, maybe he shouldn’t be. 

Daniels tried to get the gun back. “Why are you leaving an untested prototype down here? Don’t we have an armory for that?” 

“Needed special part, only available in engineering.” He tugged at the gun again. “Got distracted. Important idea about genophage. Taking gun back for for final assembly.” 

“Ohh, did you cure it? I mean, shouldn’t you be able to, what with having helped design it to begin with and all that,” Donnelly butted in from the side, watching their tug of war.

“Did. However, didn’t ‘design genophage’. Merely part of team adapting it. Need gun back now, important armament update for Commander possible with it.” That made her let go, and Mordin took a quick step back. “Thank you. Sure Shepard will appreciate upgrade.” Well, someone would, once he could figure out what, exactly, the upgrade was that he’d made to the Scorpion. Shepard probably wouldn’t part from her Widow unless you knocked her out and then pried it from her hands. 

He made his way back to the shuttle bay, hoping that his little trip had given Kirrahe a chance to cool off again - or think of more creative torments than ‘shoot on sight’, he could find a way to get out of creative torments, he couldn’t get out of a bullet to the head - but he still looked pretty furious when he stepped through the gate.

Though that was admittedly the second thing Mordin noticed. The first thing was the heat sink aimed straight for his face. Spent heatsink, and only thrown, but he still reflexively dove behind a crate.  
“Why?!” 

“That burn on my arm!” Another heatsink came sailing his way the moment he lifted his head out of cover. He ducked back down quickly, watching the sink’s trajectory. It would have hit him right between the eyes if he’d been just a fraction slower. One had to admire Kirrahe’s aim.  
“You ejected a heatsink onto my arm!” 

“Possible ejected heatsink on own arm!” He tried to defend himself. Another spent sink came flying, this one bounced from another crate to get _behind_ his cover. That was just unfair.

“No, these are heatsinks for the M-6-Carnifex, like you use. The heatsinks for the Scorpion are shorter and have a different plug in!” 

The next sink was bounced more precisely and he’d been distracted enough that it hit him on his damaged horn. “Ow! Alright, apologies! Injury surely unintended, last cycle clearly spent partially impaired by toxic substance! If desired, can supply medigel!” 

The rain of spent heat sinks stopped. “Damn Solus, was that really that hard? I hope your horn fucking hurts.” 

Mordin carefully leaned out of his cover, but apparently Kirrahe had been mollified by the apology - or the hit, his horn still hurt, thank you very much - because he still had ample supply of heat sinks at his side. But the grenades were gone so he was willing to count it as a win. 

“Well, there was mention of medi-gel?” Kirrahe leaned back on the workbench, and he had a point there. Of course Mordin always carried some with him, even on the ship. He was a doctor after all.

He came over and stretched out his hand. He wanted Kirrahe’s arm, to apply the gel. What he got was a confused look.  
“Promised medi-gel. However, injury my fault. Therefore, treatment my responsibility.” He held his hand out again, and this time, Kirrahe obliged. With an expression of closely guarded dread, but it was good enough for him. He took his arm, rolled up the sleeve and started to gently apply the gel.  
Going by the way Kirrahe had frozen up under his hand, he was clearly expecting some sort of retaliation for the thrown heatsinks, but someone had to be the bigger salarian here, and that clearly had to be one Mordin Solus or this was never going to end. 

Once he was finished he stepped back and with a few practiced motions put the Scorpion back together seamlessly and handed it back as well. “Good as new. If EDI reconstructs records, will ask for deletion.” 

\--------

Kirrahe left the Normandy at their next stop-over at the Citadel, with no further coffee incidents taking place.  
Mordin did however receive an interesting message just two days later.

“Solus,

The upgrade to the Scorpion is very impressive, but would it have killed you to warn me? I broke my wrist.

Kirrahe”


End file.
